Behind the Scenes of Your Next Good Read

Category: WebExtras

We thought we’d share another shot of Mother Goose on the Loose’s Betsy Diamant-Cohen, D.C.D. ’05, in action at the Port Discovery Children’s Museum during her photo shoot with photographer Chris Hartlove

Looking for Your Next Good Read? Our Alums in the Know Offer Their Top Picks

When looking for good reads, go straight to the source: our UB alumni librarians.

“Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a great example of historical fiction. Butler, a dynamic African-American writer, depicts the slavery experience as anything but typical, taking the reader on a journey through the eyes of Dana Franklin and her discovery of her white ancestors.”

“Antero Pietila’s Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City is an examination of the discriminatory practices in Baltimore’s housing industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. From the exclusion of Jews and African Americans in home-buying opportunities to the predatory-lending policies following the civil rights movement, this book’s portrayal of one of Baltimore’s best-kept secrets evokes emotions that touch your core.”

“Rick Bragg’s Ava’s Man is at the top of my list of favorite books. Bragg has a way with words, a turn of phrase, if you will, which leaves me breathless. He is a master storyteller as he tells us about his grandfather who died before he ever knew him. Bragg says, ‘Since I never really had a grandfather, I decided to make me one. I built him up from dirt level, using half-forgotten sayings, half-remembered stories and a few yellowed, brittle, black-and-white photographs that, under the watch of my kin, I handled like diamonds.’”

“Richard Peck’s The River Between Us is young-adult historical fiction, but it should also be read by adults. Peck has a way of pulling his readers into the story, with twists and turns all the way to the very end, and then unceremoniously dumping them out at the very end—blinking their eyes as they ‘come to’ and wonder what year it is.”

“Anything by UB’s own Kendra Kopelke [associate professor, School of Communications Design]. Her writing feels like home, the safe place you settle into.”

“Toni Morrison’s A Mercy has iridescently drawn characters and a plot set in late-1600s Eastern America. It is poetically written, at times stunningly sad and achingly clear on the possible outcome of the best, most loving intentions.”

“‘The war was over; a new age was beginning but the dead were dead and would never return.’ So writes Vera Brittain, who served as a nurse in France and lost her brother and three close friends in World War I. Her Testament of Youth is a rare female voice among the many literary works published by British participants in that war, but, like them, she paints a bleak picture of her experiences.”

“An American injured in World War II, Paul Fussell sought out the literature produced in the trenches of World War I. Later, he was allowed to sift through archives of unpublished soldiers’ papers acquired by the Imperial War Museum. He analyzes their language in his classic text The Great War and Modern Memory, providing a window on the lives and thoughts of British soldiers in the trenches. ‘There are still some who apparently think the First World War was not such a bad idea,’ says Fussell in an afterword to the 2000 edition. Neither he nor Brittain would agree. Both recall a generation that patriotically marched off to the battle lines and emerged, if not shattered, at least shaken.”